Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist
GASPÉ – Gaspé’s Maison de la famille Parenfant will be the first facility of its type to have a birthing room. Since the number of births in the Gaspé Peninsula does not justify the creation of a birthing centre, the Maison de la famille has come up with a solution to offer the service itself.
“It is indeed a version adapted to the Gaspésie and Côte-de-Gaspé region,” says Parenfant coordinator Marie-Andrée Nadeau.
The current Maison de la famille will be expanded, essentially doubling its space to include a birthing room, labour room and a new large multipurpose room. This project will enhance services already offered for the past three years and is the second phase in developing midwifery services in the Côte-de-Gaspé.
“It consolidates other activities. For three years, we have offered the social perinatal service including pregnancy monitoring with a medical team at the Maison de la famille. Now we are adding services to offer births in the birthing room and a labour room in which couples living further away in the Côte-de-Gaspé can come and spend the first stages of childbirth before going to the hospital,” explains Ms. Nadeau.
“That’s what we want in the Côte-de-Gaspé MRC to have a team as large as in the Bay of Chaleur, to offer complete midwifery services including births in a birthing room,” she says.
A job posting for a midwife is listed on the Gaspé Peninsula CISSS (Integrated Health and Social Services Centre) website. The project is innovative as it does not exist elsewhere in Quebec.
“We hope it will set a precedent for remote regions like ours,” says the coordinator. This offers families the chance to give birth with midwives in a neutral place, outside of a hospital environment.
“Since the arrival of the social perinatal service, the CISSS has always supported it and discussions are going very well for the expansion,” says Ms. Nadeau.
The services continue to be appreciated by the population and the addition of services will meet a need.
“That’s what we saw in the two surveys that we conducted a birthing room, a service that does not exist at all; and a labour room, for families further from the Côte-de-Gaspé; and a large room will meet many of the demands because we will finally be able to offer collective cooking activities and we will be able to increase the number of people participating per group with the expansion,” the coordinator asserts.
The $1.2 million project is funded by partners, and a public fundraising campaign will be launched in October. Plans are advanced, and construction is expected to begin in the summer of 2025 with an opening projected for the winter of 2026.